I was never going to let you give up on me. Not then, not now.

Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 3rd Generation
Current Date: June 18, 2059

Character: Uriel Storm-Daii
Race: Halfling – Demon / Human / Strife
Age: 34, physically about 26
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
 

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The dream-entity that somehow had found its way into my VR setup has been amiss since that day. For the first while following that day, I jokingly told myself that I had somehow trapped it in virtual reality. It helped ease something in me, for just a little while. Mostly because I knew very well that this was unlikely. From the get-go, I’ve never actually known what this entity was.

All it has ever been, from the very beginning, was a foggy presence now and again in my dreams, never much more than that. It never harmed me, it never caused me to harm myself, and all it ever truly did was confuse me far more than anything else.

The thing to keep in mind is that it has always been that thing in my dreams. Up until it showed up in VR, dreams had been at its base and that was that. It didn’t even show up all that often, just often enough to cause issues, if you would, but that is about it, really. When it showed up that last time I ever did bother with VR, a little more than two years ago at this point, I think I might have panicked a little. Not in a flail, run around, heart going a mile a minute way, just, in my head, I guess.

So that it hasn’t come back to see me in my dreams for any reason whatsoever since then has been strange. I’m still telling myself that it’s nothing more than a sort of brain fog more than anything else. Maybe it just got bored with being in my dreams. Maybe there was something more interesting in the VR and the whole system. Maybe none of it has been real and it’s just my brain making things up for me to find some interest in my dreams. I just don’t know.

What I do know is that I should have just left it be.

I mean, it’s technically what I did, but, at the same time, not really?

I am a fairly curious person, mostly when it comes to particular things. Most of those things are old and lost languages because I just love working on deciphering every single little thing about them and I love being able to figure out the details of things. A single symbol can mean so many different things, it depends on the person, in the long run.

Anyway, don’t ask me why, I wouldn’t even be able to explain it, but just a few days ago, I went back into the system, and I loaded the archived file from my last visit into the virtual reality set I’d done. Not my first, but certainly my last and I just haven’t even thought about going back. I guess that even years down the road, I was still curious about the symbols I’d found on those ruins and my notes didn’t seem to do them any justice.

The fog wasn’t in any of the video archives. I wasn’t in any of the audio archives either. It’s as though I was talking to myself from beginning to end as it was there. I still remember it being there. I am not the type of person who will talk to myself—or answer my own questions. Or even really just argue with myself.

That unsettled me a little. I never thought to find any real means of checking if the entity was real or not. Then again, I had only ever seen it in my dreams, so checking on that front was a little harder than anything else. Our dreams aren’t recorded, not unless we’re at the clinic and wearing all of the gear. Considering how rarely it was ever in my dreams, going for recording sessions on that front would have been moot.

So that it wasn’t there in the archives for the VR unsettled me a little, but I did what I could about it: I ignored the fact and focused on what I’d been watching these files for. The symbols on the ruins.

Last night, after days of being focused on the symbols and not the fog—I’ll be honest, once I got focused on deciphering the symbols, the rest was history—it came to me in my sleep.

I was not ready to see it crop up the way it had, and I would have much preferred that it stayed away.

Especially when in its soft, ever-low, but somehow almost somewhat menacing voice—something it had never really had before—it told me that it was never going to let me give up on it. Not then, and certainly not now. I woke up with a slightly startled intake of air, I stared at nothing in the darkness of our bedroom, and I might have needed more time than I wish I had to settle back to sleep.

If I think about it at all, it was almost five when I closed my eyes properly again and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t even really midnight when I woke with a start. I have no idea what I did just lying there during those hours, I have no real memory of that time, but Gus hasn’t said anything, so I’ll let it slide for now.

Final Word Count: 885

We’re in a literal ghost town. Don’t provoke any of them by… being you.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 3rd Generation
Characters: Uriel Storm-Daii
Race: Halfling – Demon / Human / Strife
Age: 32, physically about 26
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
Final Word Count: 789 words
 

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Virtual reality is not really my thing. I’ve tried it once or twice, especially while digging things up that could hold my interest, but after an attempt or three, I realized that I just couldn’t focus while I was in there.

I think that what helped me make up my mind on my final try at virtual reality—without Gus that time for reasons that I don’t fully remember but that’s okay—is that what I’d like to call the entity that has visited me in my dreams a few times was there, with me, in that virtual reality setup.

The thing is, at this point, is that I don’t know if the entity is real. I don’t know if it’s something that my mind has made up. I don’t know what it might be. All I do know is that it hasn’t tried to harm me yet, it actually seemed to be trying to help me, the last time it was in my dreams, so I don’t know that I’m afraid of it.

It’s just startling when you think you’re on your own, even in virtual reality, and then out of the blue, that quiet little voice pipes up next to you. It’s very startling.

This is the same odd entity that told me, in that one dream, that I had my whole life in my hands, as though I could control every little aspect of it. I haven’t seen it often, it’s always a very foggy sort of sense when it is near me, but the voice is clear, despite being very low.

I’d picked an old sort of city ruins as my landscape for that day. I’d found through reading one of the texts I’d been translating that there were supposed to be ruins there and I know that we had visuals on pretty much everywhere—almost—in the world as of just before it all went down the crapper. Somehow, they’d sent miniature drones everywhere and they’d gathered as much data as they could about everything in the few years leading to the end. I’m still not sure how they managed that, but I think it’s fascinating.

Now, there I was, the VR had settled, I was standing near the entrance to what looked like a huge temple and there was writing on the walls of that temple that I could see. That was what I’d come for. I don’t know that these had been documented yet and even while in VR, I’d had in mind to give it a try.

The moment I moved to step closer to the temple, there was that fog next to me. One moment it was there, the next it was not and, well, it’s always a little startling, you know. I don’t see that fog often, so I’m never quite sure if it’s fog or something else and, well, this time it was something else.

As it spoke, it told me that we were in a literal ghost town. That made me pause, mostly to assess. I suppose it wasn’t wrong, it was such an old place that even before the war, this place had been filled with ghosts, so to speak. I didn’t know why it had come, if to just tell me that, you know.

But then, as I took another step forward, it chuckled. I kid you not, I’d never heard anything that might have resembled humour from that fog before and that was so strange. It told me to not provoke those ghosts, by, well, being myself. Had I been anyone else, I might have taken offence to that, but I think I just sort of briefly squinted at the fog—not that I could make out any sort of features, after all—and I huffed at it.

After that, I ignored it as best as I could. I could still see it out of the corner of my eye wherever I went in the ruins and, every so often, though I don’t know if it was my mind or not making that up, I could feel something possibly brushing past me on the side where the fog was not.

I only stayed an hour, I think. I don’t recall quite exactly. What I do know is that I didn’t stay half as long as I might have wanted, and while what I noted down and took photos of was fascinating, I didn’t like being followed around by that fog, especially in the VR, doubly so since I hadn’t actually set it up to be part of anything. I mean, maybe it was part of the original scene, I just don’t know.

I don’t think I’ve gone into VR since. At least, not alone.

Your life is in your own hands. What will you do with it?

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 3rd Generation
Characters: Uriel Storm-Daii
Race: Halfling – Demon / Human / Strife
Age: 30, physically about 26
Final Word Count: 694 words
 

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At times, I have dreams that seem to be based on memories of my time at the clinic after the accident. The thing is, nearly any and all memories I have of my time there is one big blur. I was on such high medication dosage that nothing made sense, I was in and out of consciousness most of the time and all I really do remember are blurry images and voices without any clear words.

So that my mind somehow seems to be making up clearer images and scenarios based on that time frame in my life was terrifying at first because I didn’t want to relieve that; the last thing I wanted was to relive it all but I got used to the dreams as they were more dreams than nightmares and as the years drifted on by, so did how frequent those dreams turned out to be. I think I have that particular dream maybe once every year or so at this point, it’s really not much.

One of the stranger versions of that dream is one I’ve had about three months ago. It was a chilly day and my back muscles were giving me issues. I’d spent more than an hour in a temperature-regulated sensory deprivation pod because it’s one of the better things for my back at times like these. I don’t remember ever really dreaming while in the pod before so it was a new one but I guess I did fall asleep in that enveloping darkness.

I remember seeing myself as though I was floating above the scene, the docs, the nurses, my parents… there always seem to be a flurry of motion when I’m having these dreams but that’s not really what had my attention was the floating… something next to me. The fact that it was a big blur next to make is what makes the dream so strange. I have no clear memories of that time, but my dreams seem to state I do, and yet, here I was, floating above everything with this whatever-it-was floating next to me.

It spoke to me, too. It told me that my life was in my own hands. That I was the one who could and would decide of what happened from that point on. It said that if I wanted to get better, I had to want to get better and a little part of me was like, ‘d’uh, of course, I want to get better’ but, you know.

It paused as though giving me time to take in everything and then it asked me if I had decided what I wanted to do now that I had the knowledge that my life was in my very own hands. I admit that this made me pause a little. I mean, you control your own life, it’s in your hand most of the time but not in a complete way, I know. There are things out there that you can’t control. You don’t know if a branch might not fall from a tree and hit you on the way down. You don’t know if you might not slip and break your ankle.

So the idea of my life being completely in my own hands was a strange one and I knew that it didn’t make sense; I can’t control everything that surrounds me. I never was able to do that and I never will be able. The most I can do is just be mindful of things; I’m careful of how I sit, or where I sit. I’m mindful over most things, I don’t have a choice. I can walk now, I can do a lot of things but there will always remain scars and reminders along my back of that tumble and nothing will change that.

It’s not a problem enough for me to want to ask for a miracle. At first, it crossed my mind but as the years passed and I found myself settling into comfortable habits, I let the idea go. I don’t need it, not really. I really just need Gus with me and I’m quite happy about things.

I’m not in denial of my feelings. I don’t have any.

 
Timeline/World: Atheria – 3rd Generation
Characters: Uriel Storm-Daii
Race: Halfling – Demon / Human / Strife
Age: 29, physically about 26
Final Word Count: 607 words
 

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Recently, I dreamed I was a robot. Not the high-technology advanced ones—though I was by the end of the dream—but the sort of square-ish ones we see in old cartoons.

I didn’t have much of a mind of my own at the start. I was truly little more than a computer. I did compute pretty well and I did it quickly. Time went by pretty fast, though, or not, I have a hard time with, well, time as far as dreams are concerned. I can never tell whether or not time was moving by at a crawling pace or not.

As the dream went on, though, I became more advanced, I think I probably started to truly develop an artificial intelligence but I didn’t have emotions or feelings, I couldn’t. I didn’t have the proper knowledge for that. I remember arguing—was it arguing? It’s hard to tell when you’re a computer—with one of the scientists who worked on me.

I remember being told that I was in denial but I constantly was countering that statement with the fact—to my computer mind, it was a fact—that I couldn’t be in denial, I didn’t have any feelings. I couldn’t, I was just a computer.

The arguing didn’t take up much time, as far as the dreamscape is concerned, I moved forward after that, gaining even more of a mind of my own and by the end, I might very well have had feelings? I don’t know. I certainly could laugh and tell jokes and feel something pinch in me when I was told something sad. I had a three-dimensional hologram body by then, as well as a full human-like body. Maybe I was an android?

The dream, as a whole, was odd. I don’t mind robots; I certainly don’t mind our AI. He’s been helpful from the start though now and again I feel the need to turn it off, especially in our bedroom. I’m not paranoid and I know that it’s against its laws to do a lot of things without being told to beforehand but now and again I just like to make sure we have absolute privacy in our bedroom, you know?

What made it odd was the fact that I was the robot. I have no idea if that’s how it goes for robots, in a way. There’s no real way of going inside of them—computer memory aside, once it begins to develop its AI, you can’t pinpoint exactly how things might be for that being.

At which point does it stop being a computer and stops being, a, well, being? When does it no longer fit the computer criteria and becomes something more, something sentient, something human?

I don’t like thinking about these things. I’d rather study the old scrolls and the long-forgotten languages. When you think about it, humans are computers in a way. We store information; our brain sends signal left and right for our body to act in certain ways. It deciphers the signals the eyes are sending it, the smells the nose is taking in, the tastes in the mouth. All things that are, technically, programmed into us, when you do stop and think about it.

So robots might not be that far off from us, in a way. Not that it really matters in the long run, does it? We are as we are, nothing will ever truly change that and, as it is, the only ones who can judge who and what we are, are ourselves. I don’t think anything will change that any time soon.

Is it required?

Timeline/World: Atheria 3rd Generation
Characters: Uriel Storm-Daii
Race: Halfling – Demon / Human / Strife
Age: 27, physically about 26
Final Word Count: 553 words

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Cue whiny tone and playfully exasperated significant other. Cue pouting, some more pouting and defeat as I cave in the way I always do. I mean, I know I have to but every single time, it’s the same thing. I start asking if I have to if I muuuuust despite knowing that I have to and it always ends up as a situation where I just pout away for a few moments before letting it all go.

It’s childish I know. But after having spent what felt like years being treated for my back, having to go once a year still seems like a chore to me. I know that it’s for my own good, I still have somewhat poor working habits though they are nowhere as bad as they were at the beginning and my back will forever have a need for a bit of a fix-up. At least now it only is once a year or even once every other year when I’m good about my posture.

When I was fresh out of the medical ward it was every week. It took a long time before that moved to every other week, then once a month, every two months, three, four, six.

It is my fault I am this way. I should have known to feel out for the ground around us before I took us there on that outing but just to see his eyes brighten up at the scene before us, a scene that is forever imprinted in my mind, much as is the first shift of the earth under my foot and the following caving of everything else. The free fall, the rock I landed on. I act like everything about that day is a blur but it’s not. Every small moment is a clear picture in my mind, the memories are sharp. I can see the look in his eyes as he realizes what’s going on, I remember the way I felt my heart sort of slow down despite the feel of gravity pulling me down. My breath coming out of me in a pained huff when I landed on that rock, the pain, the darkness.

I know parents on both sides of this issue were trying to blame either party, I admit that this part of the ordeal is blurry for me but I was drugged up in a way that left me feeling like I was floating far above my body.

The therapy was unpleasant but I didn’t care. I was getting back on my feet one way or the other. I refused to let this accident take away from me the one person who meant so much, the one reason I was working so hard.

So yes, all of this sad bit of a trip down memory lane because I still have to get my back realigned once a year. Gus can manage most of the small work I need doing during the year itself but the bigger realignment is a bit more complicated and it always leaves me feeling like I’m uncomfortable putty afterwards, there’s always a pinch that takes a few days to fade, it really is the one reason why I fuss about going, despite knowing that it’s for my own good.

I’m just glad he puts up with me.